- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Anti-elitist outrage.

: The post which Barry examined was a passionate statement made with the damning of privilege in mind. Barry has alerted me to the possibility that I had over emphasised one line in "family, private property and the state" at the expense of the full image. This may be the case and I accept the point made by Barry.

Yet you wouldn't accept anything we said, the only reason being that Barry made reference to some holy marxian textbook, what about making reference to the real world and what people understand and want as freedom?

: I wish now to discuss the reason for that rejection of exclusive love ties between family and pairs, for I believe it is potentially the root of inegalitarian privilege seeking - in short; a crack in our socialist future.

Is socialism going to be totalitarian? I sounds like it according to this post. I mean is there a socialist way to do everything? A socialist way to make love, a socialist way to drink beer, a socialist way to watch TV, to prevent inequity between lovers, beer or a TV set? Socialism might be somethings but for Christ sake it isnt everything.

: It is understood that economic equality is paramount and that social ownership of the means of production, democratic process and job rotation are the cornerstones.

Provided none of these things are violently imposed by some death dealing dictatorship or ideological foot soldiers, you have my agreement so far.

:But - even in so fine a socialist brotherhood there may lie the festering poison of privilege, where one person favors another emotionally they may attempt to favor them economically - what checks do we have against this?

Do we need check? It is after all the private lives of the people and no intrusion can justly be made without destroying freedom. As equality do you mean uniformity?

:Where do we as a society recognise that those bestowed with emotional devotion may also be bestowed with privileges!

I dont like the sound of this at all, it sounds as though you wish to destroy emotions and render humanity a terrible uniform machine, correct me if I'm wrong but if you succeed how will anyone know they are free if they arent emotive enough to recognise it?

: It is vital, I am sure Barry knows, that the raising of children be engaged as a social process.

This is nazi behaviour talking about breaking up and destroying the family, how would you have liked it if you where taken from your parents and family to be raised in some grotty commune as they did in Red China? Well I sure as hell wouldn't have appreciated it.

The family is a basic communistic unit, where mutual aid is prevailant, it is transformation of the family and decline in traditional functionality in families that has given rise to a massive increase in egotistical individualism and you dont need Marx to tell you that just ask any social worker or sociologist.

:Parents who wish to see their offspring gain more than others are not acting in the interest of a socialist society.

What do you mean by this? Achievement and self actualisation are basic human needs, see the organisational sociologists Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, and they drive people to investigate and learn etc. now there are two models of this, one in which this achievement and actualisation are at the expense of society and one in which they benefit society but the one that seeks to destroy it by force was tried out by the khmer rouge in Cambodia and resulted in one of the greatest genocidal desasters known to mankind.

:Put bluntly comrades - a parent who seeks to have their offspring gain privilege over others is against the revolution!

And if you are against the revolution you must die no doubt, this is garbage, how do you know what is and what isnt the revolution? Or socialism for that matter? Because you have read Marx and Engels, yes they may have had insights, yes they provided a fine analysis but their works are full of prejudice and authoritarian German collectivism, you yourself can only know what means freedom for you, as does everyone else, now if that involves imposing your will on others or trying to make them conform to your vision you have more in common with McDonalds and the Capitalists than any freedom fighter.

:The fabric of socially owned facilities must be tied strongly so that groups of people do not win for themselves greater access than is their due under the maxim 'from each according to their ability to each according to their need'. Ideally a parent would think of the needs of a strangers child as they would their own.

Or rather networks of entended families would create a community that would voluntarily exemplify mutual aid.

:Indeed a parent can have no more say in the raising of their child than can the society a whole - to do so is to be in a position of privilege, to do so is to deny others.

I believe that Engels actual objections where as regarded the will of the child, it's ability to freely develop, not some over arching concern that the child develop into a loyal conformist as your tone seems to suggest.

: In pair bonding the same threat exists - either partner cannot hold a greater sway over, nor grant a greater economic benefit to the other without assuming the mantle of privilege. How do we check against this in socialism?

If you refer to compulsion, checks on the freewill, on the freedom of the (socialist) individual then if the revolution has been an anarchist one, that is based on the empowerment of the individual and that individuals own reaction and response against the forces of capital and compulsion, everyone will be endowed with the necessary qualities and spirited strength and steel to maintain their freedom and personal identity.

If it's been some leninst putsch fiasco these problems will persist forever because the individual in 'socialism' as in capitalism will be in a situation where their lives are marked by dependency upon the benevolence and actions of social and economic elites and fear of those same elites and no real course of action against these elites, which results in submissiveness, depression and death.

:This, Barry, was why I appealed to a youth to ceaselessly serve the revolution - to remain at all times alert to creeping social division - however innocent may seem its source!

It's a bit misguided and naive but I appreciate the fact that you are working from a textbook and trying to prove your sincerity and determination through dogmatic loyalty to the books suggestions.

: Matters such as these may seem to be of little consequence when facing the massive inequality of the capital offensive but I believe we ignore them at our peril - for privilege granted between members of society exclusive of the totality transforms into inequality and social division - this works to destroy our socialist future.

There are sociological implications for ever change in the socialisation and conditioning of the individual and society, have you noticed the support for neo-nazism in the former (Soviet) eastern bloc Germany? This is a result of an education system that preached vulgar collectivism and integration and loyalty to a system before family etc. and a rediscovered national egotism or chauvinism, now I wouldn't take the chance with your system centric socialisation because the consequences have already been made clear.

:This is true of any cracks, such as Nikhil Jaikumars proposal of a scientific or artistic elite presiding over the new proletariat!

I guarantee to sir, that will you scoff, NJ's proposals are not eliteist, at least no less elitist than leninism's privileged vanguard tactics, infact democratic socialism, with it's reliance on the real permation of socialist ideas into society is more true to a deep rooted revolution than your putschism.

:Is it not understood that the distinction of being the proletariat, as a second class, is that which socialism seeks to make null and void!!?

Again you have misinterpretted what NJ had to say, I believe working from a second hand account (that is Barry's account), do want a proletarian society or a classless one?